Chapter 12 - The ‘Wrong’ Meetings?

Summary

This chapter considers the terms coetus and contio used to describe non-decision-making meetings in Republican Rome. They are not opposites on a spectrum, but have entirely different qualities. While contio implies a political meeting with a more-or-less clear set of specific characteristics, a coetus is not even necessarily a meeting. When it is, only a broader informative context can show whether coetus is an opposite of contio, a general term for a gathering, encompassing contio within it, or a pejorative, yet precise, equivalent of contio. An application of the more precise contio to a meeting that does not look like a typical contio may imply that the author thought the gathering had at least some of the specific features of a contio. Especially telling are the instances in which the terms coetus and contio both indicate the same meeting. Thus, Livy compares some plebeian coetus with official contiones in a serious rather than sarcastic or ironic manner because they were commensurable in terms of political significance. It follows that such terminology reflects both the actual features of political gatherings and the political aims and preferences of the ancient authors.